Movie Reviews!!!
End of the Spear
Rated PG-13
A group of missionaries move to the Amazon basin to try and make contact with the indigenous peoples to spread the Gospel of Christ. This is the true story of their life and death struggle, and devotion to their faith. The story centers around the Waodani tribe, a group made famous in the area by their willingness to shed blood.
The mundane aspects of real life necessary to frame the story sometimes cause the pacing to feel a little slow and bland, but the irony is that when you see the strength these characters gain through their faith, it is a challenge to remember that this is a factual account of something that actually happened - it's that profound.
There are moments of excitement interspersed throughout. There are also healthy doses of death and violence - something I consider essential whenever depicting the human condition - however the death and violence is mostly conceptual - meaning that it is not very graphic in nature - you're not seeing gore or hearing death rattles, it's all very quick and to the point. In other words, there is violence and death but the movie does not focus on it or glorify it - it is back story, nothing more. I would imagine that a large part of the intended audience for this film are Christian church groups.
There are no "heroes" here, just ordinary people living lives through extraordinary circumstances by relying on their faith. Their faith is not a magical power that saves them from hardship, rather it is a thing which transcends their urges for fear, violence and revenge, and gives them the strength to persevere and makes them an example for everyone who sees it.
Although the story is about Christian missionaries, it never gets "preachy" - unlike most modern secular films which will unapologetically try to hit you over the head with humanist philosophy (The Day After Tomorrow for example). There are remarkably profound statements, both spoken and demonstrated which you will easily miss if you are not paying attention. For example,
Most of the movie felt like watching some sort of reinactment on the Discovery Channel - and I suppose in a lot of ways it was, but it all culminates into a very moving and profound ending which had me at the brink of tears. It is definitely worth watching, and I consider it to be "family-friendly". If you're concerned about violence, consider the fact that the Bible itself depicts much more death and violence than this movie, and is a lot more graphic about it to boot. The movie contains violence for the same reason that the Bible does - to record it, not to glorify it.
The filmmakers included a message at the end of the film explaining that half of the profits are going to go to missionary work to reach natives who have never had contact with the Gospel.
Underworld: Evolution
Rated R
This movie takes up right where the first one left off, following the further adventures of Selene, the Death Dealer (A sort of Vampire hit-squad), and Michael - an unprecendented hybrid of Vampire and Lycan (Werewolf).
Let me first say that I am a big fan of the first Underworld movie and I was really looking forward to this one. Unfortunately, this one failed to live up to its prececessor, but not necessarily in the ways you might think. In terms of story, acting, special effects, cinematography, it matched and often exceeded the first Underworld movie - there is obviously a bigger budget involved, but the original talent is still there in droves and unaltered.
The one failing of the movie is the juvinile inclusion of sex. One of my favorite things about the first movie was the fact that it delivered an awesome story, a sexy heroine who really knew how to kick butt (and dressed appropriately for it - i.e. she covered up rather than flaunting exposed cleavage or an exposed midriff), plenty of violence and action, and even a little romance, but no sex whatsoever. It was an awesome formula and it worked. This time around the directors' boyish tendancies got the best of them and they decided to include two sex scenes and some nudity, which thanks to flashbacks and visions hit the screen about six times. Ridiculuous stuff. Even if I liked seeing that sort of thing in movies, it would have done nothing to contribute to the story. When are filmmakers going to learn to keep porn, softcore and hard, in porn flicks, and let action adventure movies be about action and adventure? The same stupidity took place with the Matrix sequels, and look what happened to them...
Despite its locker-room failings, the movie offered a goodly dose of intrigue and mystery, revealing a story even deeper and more engaging than that of the first movie. The action sequences are top-notch thanks to special effects that don't look like special effects. One thing that particularly impressed me was that the entire cast were the original actors - even though some of them only got a handful of seconds onscreen. In a lot of sequels, actors will not come back to reprise roles that only give them one or two lines, so replacement actors are used, or clever tricks, like cutting in footage from the previous movie. But apparently the actors and the budget were kind and the filmmakers were given autonomy to craft the story the way they wanted.
Bottom line is that I can't recommend this movie because of the sex. It a shame really because other than that, it was quite good.
Tristan + Isolde
Rated PG-13
This movie was kind of a sleeper. I had never heard of it, and my wife had seen part of a trailer for it and thought it looked good so we went ahead and gave it a go.
I was actually a bit surprised at how good it was. It's not "Braveheart" good, but it is say "Kingdom of Heaven" good.
It is the story of two star-crossed lovers. A lot of parallels can be drawn between this story, Romeo and Juliet, and the King Arthur story. History-wise, the timeline seems a little wonky but it seemed to be based on a local legend so you can't really expect it to be accurate. By that same token, it's possible that this legend actually bore some sort of influence on Romeo and Juliet and the King Arthur story.
The story takes place in what is now know as the UK and revolves around the conflict between a united Ireland and a Brittian left in shambles by the fall of Rome. The Irish enjoy military superiority against any one of the nations that Brittian is comprised of, but would be outnumbered two to one should Brittian actually unite under a single king. So the Irish king is doing everything he can to sew fear, strife and dissention among the Brittans to prevent it. Caught up in the midst of this political intrigue are Tristan - the champion of Brittian's best candidate for a king, and Isolde the daughter of the king of Ireland.
This movie did an excellent job crafting the complex interrelationships between the main characters in ways that did not leave your head spinning. It also split hairs where love and morality contend for supremacy. Although it did not exactly debate the issues, it did not direct the audience to one conclusion or the other, it merely laid bare an impossible situation and let the audience decide.
The action sequences did not disappoint, offering a clean view of the various battles and conflicts - easily on par with Braveheart in that sense. Although battles were clearly not the focus of the film, they were nevertheless done with care and helped to add to the realism of the story.
There were multiple sex scenes, but no nudity, and they were done respectfully and were relavent to the story. I don't know if I'd give this a family-friendly rating, but the PG-13 rating is a sufficient guideline.
All in all, it's a good date movie. (Or apparently for gaggles of teenaged girls who sit behind you in the theather and giggle, gasp, sigh and "ewww gross!" through the whole thing....)
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